It has been a long journey this, from January this year till date, looking for that elusive perfect job opportunity. It has been a bit of roller coaster really, what with one bad news following another, with one setback closely following another and sometimes piggybacking. When I look back, this year has been the hardest of all my years here on this planet and I have gone through some really really bad years.
But apart from the usual complaining mode, I also feel that this passage of time has been really beneficial for me. One needs adversity to really know oneself, the depths of despair that one can go through with only hope providing succour to the aggrieved self. I have changed a lot. My ego has taken a harsh beating and it has led me to discover the world in totally different light. I have softened my stance on lot of things and I have mellowed down a lot. More over, I have stopped hurting others with my barbs and comments. And I have been doing a lot of breathing exercises and some meditation exercises.
When I first read Power of Now, I was intrigued by the idea that thoughts can be stopped. It was a novel concept for me because you see I believed that thoughts are what have shaped me. And I love thinking. It could be about reading what is in front of eyes and reflecting on it. It could be a problem analysis. Or it could be just plain day dreaming. Thoughts have raged inside me, egged me to say or to do things. And to imagine a state of being where thoughts can be stopped so that the self can be heard. Wow !!! But no matter how hard I tried, I always failed. The thoughts were always there. I tried some pranayam. I tried living in the now by being more aware of my surroundings. But everytime I would check, the damned thoughts were always there. I couldn't stop them, couldn't control them. But gradually I could fashion them. I would constantly check on myself and if I felt that I don't have to think this way, I could coerce them into thinking something else. But when I would close my eyes to just be in that moment, the noise would return. A fragment of song, a tune, a face, a scene would start playing again. And so it continued. Then I read a book of Tibetan philosophy on meditation. I liked the idea and gave it a try. Well for one ephemeral moment, I felt I was really in the moment. And then it was gone because you see I was trying to record my emotions and that, my friends, is a nagging thought running behind the scenes.
But today finally I broke the shackles. In the morning, when I sat down for the customary session of closing my eyes, of focusing on my breath and of de-cluttering my mind, it suddenly happened. I was focusing on the middle of my eyes and suddenly everything started glowing yellow, like some light. I immediately opened my eyes and I saw that the sky was covered with clouds. I closed my eyes again and after some time again the yellow light turned on. As I kept focusing, some random thought kept disturbing me. But rather than giving up, I persisted. And for some seconds, I felt peace and tranquility. I was suddenly happy, relaxed. And I realized no thoughts !!!! For some seconds, I dwelt there, happy to be there, just being fully present in that moment. And then when I tried opening my eyes, they wouldn't open. It was so relaxing, so peaceful that I didn't want to get out of that state, even when a little voice was now getting louder to break out of it. Was it trance? I don't know but I was able to open my eyes. I felt wonderful then, very happy, very content. This is how I want to be. After all these years of torture and suffering the constant howling of idiotic thoughts, I was finally able to quieten it.
Well the feeling didn't remain for long. Pretty soon, I was in my car, driving towards office and the regular jams and honking jolted me out of it. But I am going to try it again, tomorrow and every day.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
exercises in business development
The past few days have been crazy. It just seems that gods are not smiling at me. I keep on praying so hard for things I need, absolutely need to retain my sanity in this depraved, crazy world and the gods in their infinite wisdom keep on denying me. I keep on searching for some clue as to understand how I fit in the grand scheme of things, but my finite learnings have a limit. On the personal front, this whole month has been very very harrowing for me, enough to send a normal person down the spiral of depression. "ye to main hun ki is haal me bhi zinda hoon"
On the professional front, this whole month has been exercises in futility. I finally got the work I really really wanted to do. I have always known that I am a seeker, that I thrive when I have to read something about a lot of something. But I sometimes falter when I have to focus my research on only one topic. As such, reading tenders and writing business proposals is a dream come true for me. In this one month of August, I have read about Intelligent Tutoring Systems and how it can be implemented using AI and Java and I have read about Electronic Records Management System and about moreq2. So far a very good month for me :-)
I also read a lot about J2ME programming and I have finally figured out a simple enough game which I can develop over my free time and over weekends. I need to start on the coding part of it now. This should be a fairly simple trivia game, which should allow me to write and test my own game. Once this is done, on to bigger things....
On the professional front, this whole month has been exercises in futility. I finally got the work I really really wanted to do. I have always known that I am a seeker, that I thrive when I have to read something about a lot of something. But I sometimes falter when I have to focus my research on only one topic. As such, reading tenders and writing business proposals is a dream come true for me. In this one month of August, I have read about Intelligent Tutoring Systems and how it can be implemented using AI and Java and I have read about Electronic Records Management System and about moreq2. So far a very good month for me :-)
I also read a lot about J2ME programming and I have finally figured out a simple enough game which I can develop over my free time and over weekends. I need to start on the coding part of it now. This should be a fairly simple trivia game, which should allow me to write and test my own game. Once this is done, on to bigger things....
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Janmasthami, Independence day and loudspeaker songs
You would be very familiar with this pattern - everytime there is a festival, people just have to demonstrate their enthusiasm (their affluence...) by being as loud as possible. I mean the colors are loud, the jewelery adorned by women have to be loud, and who can even ignore the bleating loudspeaker blaring one cacophony after another.
yesterday it was Janmasthami, the birth of Lord Krishna, celebrated by lots and lots of people. the morning began on a peaceful note, but then soon descended into chaos and it became noisy. But it was nothing as compared to today. Today is Independence day and the loudspeakers have started blaring from 9:30 AM. I don't know when will they stop. I think there is a rule in Delhi which prohibits loudspeakers after 10 PM so that people can sleep. I remember when I was a child in Bhagalpur, it used to be pretty lawless then. People would keep on blaring loudspeakers throughout the night and if someone would dare protest, he would be threatened with dire consequences. It used to be sleepless nights for all of us back then what with one loudspeaker blaring from one direction and the other loudspeaker blaring from another. Since then I have detested loud music and I have hated all those people who go around disturbing others in the name of celebrating something, those lousy insensitive uncouth fools.
yesterday it was Janmasthami, the birth of Lord Krishna, celebrated by lots and lots of people. the morning began on a peaceful note, but then soon descended into chaos and it became noisy. But it was nothing as compared to today. Today is Independence day and the loudspeakers have started blaring from 9:30 AM. I don't know when will they stop. I think there is a rule in Delhi which prohibits loudspeakers after 10 PM so that people can sleep. I remember when I was a child in Bhagalpur, it used to be pretty lawless then. People would keep on blaring loudspeakers throughout the night and if someone would dare protest, he would be threatened with dire consequences. It used to be sleepless nights for all of us back then what with one loudspeaker blaring from one direction and the other loudspeaker blaring from another. Since then I have detested loud music and I have hated all those people who go around disturbing others in the name of celebrating something, those lousy insensitive uncouth fools.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Kush has turned 5 !!!!!
Time really really flies, there is no doubt about it. I was blessed with a son on Aug 5 2004. He was so small then, so vulnerable, so innocent. I could hold him using one arm only. I remember that initially it took some time before he started recognizing me and accepting me as someone who is always around him. I remember that when ever I would shave my facial hairs, he would stop recognizing me :-)
Now 5 years have gone by and a lot has changed. He is now able to conjure up stories and narrate them well. He is still very young. Sometimes when I am lying in bed in the morning, I hear his little feet tapping on the floor as he runs from living room to bathroom, little tap tap tap, furious little slaps on the floor as he flies to bathroom so that he can be back before the ad break gets over. Now he prefers noisy little toys, especially those of Ben 10 franchise. Sometimes he creates such a din that it is almost impossible to sit through it :-)
We celebrated his birthday yesterday. Lots of relatives turned up to wish him. And he was very very happy. Usually he goes to bed by 9 PM, but yesterday we could manage to put him to bed only by 10 PM. He was very very tired and he was still singing "happy birthday to me!!!".
I sometimes wonder about the limits of memory, about how much can it store. And I have come to a sad conclusion that old memories fade rather quickly yielding their places to newer ones and that bad (sad) memories get imprinted on the walls refusing to fade into oblivion. Everytime I start thinking about the past, the regret and the pain of missed opportunities, of what could have been, come rushing in. In a sense, "power of now" was right. Past has got no place at all except giving us opportunity to learn something. Otherwise it weighs us down with its unbearable weight. Future is something that is still unborn (bhavishya ke garbh me kya chipa hai koi nahi janata :-)). But the Now as the present moment is the key. And it holds true for my relation with my son. If I start reflecting on it, I would tend to remember his tears and the callous manner by which I denied him something that he desired. And the regret will completely overshadow the happier moments. But of course it is not true. The landscape appears tinted because my memory tints it in a certain awful manner.
I love my child unconditionally. I have genuinely tried to make him happy and content. I want him to remember me fondly when he grows up and moves on with his life. I want him to look at his childhood days with fondness and I want him to have happy memories of his time spent with us. I had read somewhere that the nature of memories of early childhood drives the nature of personality of a person. So a happy and secure childhood will give way to serene outlook and a scarred nightmarish childhood will give way to suspicious outlook. I have been a cynic and suspicious all my life and I don't want my son to go through the hell that I have gone through. That is the only present I want to give him.
Now 5 years have gone by and a lot has changed. He is now able to conjure up stories and narrate them well. He is still very young. Sometimes when I am lying in bed in the morning, I hear his little feet tapping on the floor as he runs from living room to bathroom, little tap tap tap, furious little slaps on the floor as he flies to bathroom so that he can be back before the ad break gets over. Now he prefers noisy little toys, especially those of Ben 10 franchise. Sometimes he creates such a din that it is almost impossible to sit through it :-)
We celebrated his birthday yesterday. Lots of relatives turned up to wish him. And he was very very happy. Usually he goes to bed by 9 PM, but yesterday we could manage to put him to bed only by 10 PM. He was very very tired and he was still singing "happy birthday to me!!!".
I sometimes wonder about the limits of memory, about how much can it store. And I have come to a sad conclusion that old memories fade rather quickly yielding their places to newer ones and that bad (sad) memories get imprinted on the walls refusing to fade into oblivion. Everytime I start thinking about the past, the regret and the pain of missed opportunities, of what could have been, come rushing in. In a sense, "power of now" was right. Past has got no place at all except giving us opportunity to learn something. Otherwise it weighs us down with its unbearable weight. Future is something that is still unborn (bhavishya ke garbh me kya chipa hai koi nahi janata :-)). But the Now as the present moment is the key. And it holds true for my relation with my son. If I start reflecting on it, I would tend to remember his tears and the callous manner by which I denied him something that he desired. And the regret will completely overshadow the happier moments. But of course it is not true. The landscape appears tinted because my memory tints it in a certain awful manner.
I love my child unconditionally. I have genuinely tried to make him happy and content. I want him to remember me fondly when he grows up and moves on with his life. I want him to look at his childhood days with fondness and I want him to have happy memories of his time spent with us. I had read somewhere that the nature of memories of early childhood drives the nature of personality of a person. So a happy and secure childhood will give way to serene outlook and a scarred nightmarish childhood will give way to suspicious outlook. I have been a cynic and suspicious all my life and I don't want my son to go through the hell that I have gone through. That is the only present I want to give him.
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